Obama moved into the Oval Office about as well equipped to serve as global CEO as Kim Kardashian is to run one of Wall Street’s larger investment banks. Little evidence exists to suggest that prior to becoming President he had evolved a distinctive world-view. His life to that point had offered him little opportunity to do so. A quick study, Obama had instead assimilated the standard collection of platitudes and clichés that in Washington serve as a substitute for first-hand knowledge and careful analysis. Substantively, about the only thing that voters back in 2008 knew about his foreign policy plans was that he was going to get the United States out of Iraq (‘the dumb war’), while upping the ante in Afghanistan (‘the necessary war’). Oh, and he was going to close Guantanamo tout de suite.

The diplomatic challenges of the times called for someone with seasoning, subtlety, and sophistication — a Franklin Roosevelt or Dwight D. Eisenhower or Richard Nixon, for instance. (That’s the FDR of 1943–1944, not the FDR of 1933–1934.) Obama brought little of those qualities to office.

Furthermore — and here we come to the third explanation for his administration’s lacklustre performance — as President, Obama surrounded himself with mediocrities, hacks and time-servers. One need not romanticise the achievements (nor overlook the faults) of individuals such as Henry Stimson, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski to say that no one of comparable calibre has found a place in the senior ranks of the present administration. Members of Obama’s inner circle need not fear the possibility of some smartass journalist making them the subjects of a collective biography called The Best and the Brightest.